America’s first public school offered instruction to boys, rich or poor free of charge here while girls attended private schools in peoples’ homes. The boys-only tradition finally ended in 1972 when girls were permitted to attend Boston Latin. It is fabled that on April 19, 1775 word of shots fired in Lexington circulated rapidly throughout Boston Town. Boston Latin’s instructor John Lovel was inspired to rise and rhyme “Close your books. Schools done, and war’s begun!”A striking mosaic marks the spot where the school once stood, and where one if its most famous students Benjamin Franklin attended classes not long before he dropped out of school forever. Boston Latin School is still in operation in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston.

“Genius without education is like silver in the mine.” The-mostly-self-educated statesman and Latin School dropout, Benjamin Franklin.